F1 has always claimed the crown as the
pinnacle of motorsport and remains the most technologically advanced
racing series on the planet. However, could that change with the
introduction of a new race series championed by the FIA themselves?
FormulaE for myself is an exciting concept that will see electric
only powered open wheelers challenge each other on street circuits
around the globe.

F1 has been a breeding ground for
electric vehicle technology since the inception of KERS during 2009,
although the associated costs and relative performance issues of that
year meant the teams unanimously agreed to withdraw it's usage for
2010. A years worth of R&D and all but the new F1 teams all had a firm grasp on
how to cut costs and integrate such systems in their design, without
compromising cooling and weight distribution as some of the 2009
designs had.

The success of KERS has lead to the new
breed of V6 Turbo engines scheduled for 2014 to have fully integrated
systems that harness and dispense much more power. On top of this the
new engines use TERS (Thermal Energy Recovery System) in order to
extract and dispense energy created thermally by the Turbo units.

FormulaE looks to build on the success
that Formula One has had with electric power by running the car
completely on electricity. Races will be separated into heats
consisting of 15 minute sessions, which is largely to do with the
large amounts of energy required to be stored and dispensed in
Motorsport. Charging will then be permitted during the heats.

In terms of the cars themselves you can
either purchase cars from Formula E Holdings like their Formulec FE01
Prototype above or design and field your own car based on the
Technical Regulations introduced by the FIA.

The FIA's Technical Regulations for
this series in regard to aerodynamics are free with the exception of
certain parameters like a skid block, dimensional width, height and
length, along with the usual restraints in regard to safety cells and
crash tests to safe guard the drivers. (Open or closed Cockpits are permitted but I won't go into this here as I have another article planned later in the month on this subject)

The technical regulations also go as far as
allowing incremental adjustable bodywork. This is another instance of
Formula One's success being transplanted into another series with DRS
helping to bring a return to overtaking in F1. The FIA have not however restricted adjustable bodywork to just the Rear Wing like in F1 and so teams could provide bodywork flick ups that produce downforce for cornering and retract for drag reduction along with Front and Rear Wing adjustability.

These open regulations will allow for
many exciting innovations that we have seen banned in F1 to return to
FormulaE with the likes of ground effect venturi tunnels (No skirts
like the full blown ground effect cars), flexible bodywork, F Ducts,
full length bargeboards, wheel centre covers, enlarged diffusers,
decked diffusers etc. The regulations do go as far as stopping the
use of a fan though before someone attempts to build another Brabham
BT46B. Interestingly although the cars will very much look like open
wheelers in terms of chassis design designers are permitted to run
with wheel arches. There will be no in season aerodynamic
development.

In terms of power delivery the power
outage is unlimited and power can be transmitted to either 2 or 4
wheels, traction control is also permitted.

The car including it's driver (less
it's battery/capacitor's components ) has a minimum weight of 540kg's
with the battery/capacitor components having a maximum weight of
300kg's. The minimum weight in combination is 780kg's.

Cooling will be a one of the largest
concerns in this Formula with whomever cools their battery/capacitors
the most effectively taking a large advantage. Strategy will also
play a large role in regard to the power consumed in order to drive
the car at certain speeds over the effects of recovering power under
braking. Other methods of energy recovery haven't been outlawed in
the regulations and paves the way for technology like the Williams
FlyBrid Technology, now at the fore with it's associated win at Le
Mans with the Audi team. Unlike with F1, the Williams system may
find itself more at home on board a FormulaE car as it doesn't have
the dimensional constraints imposed by the engine that ultimately
stopped it's use in their 2009 car.

One things clear with such open
regulations the series will inevitably have a year one run away
leader especially if a well funded F1 team like Red Bull, Ferrari,
McLaren or Williams were to field a car.

1 comment:

Whilst I'm trying to keep atop of the blog you may have noticed of late that there is less content appearing. For those of you that haven't realised, most of my work has now been moved over to Motorsport.com where I'm working with Giorgio Piola.

I'm still doing the technical image gallery for each GP with the continued support of friend of the site Sutton Images. However, as always my time is limited and so this might not be updated as quickly as it once was, so keep checking back.

As some of you may have found out already I'm also working with the Missed Apex crew on their podcast from time-to-time, either doing race reviews or dedicated 'Tech Time' shows.

I've embedded the latest version of the podcast below and will update this a frequently as I appear. However, please head over to Itunes if you want it to appear in your player when episodes are available. The show is great to work on and has a great lineup of 'regulars' but has also enticed some bigger names recently too, with Will Buxton and Bradley Philpot on shows during the summer break.

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Sutton Images provide the best images direct from the action every GP weekend allowing me to show you just where and what the teams are improving.